Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

At BSB* we understand that your privacy is important to you. We are committed to meeting your expectations and will comply with all applicable privacy and data protection legislation in relation to your personal information and sensitive information.

We also know you love the small print, but here’s a summary of how we protect your privacy:

1. We only collect what we need to help you with your request or provide you with information that you ask for, personalising it to your interests.

2. We won’t hang on to your information. If we don’t need it, and you don’t want us to keep it, we’ll delete it.

3. We want you to understand everything we do with your information, so we’ll try our best to explain with no nonsense.

4. No surprises - you decide what and how you hear from us.

5. That goes for everyone. We do not pass your information to third parties for marketing purposes without your knowledge.

The rest of this policy provides you with more detail of our privacy and personal information handling practices.

Who we are

BSB Global Network is a global organization that assists individuals to study abroad around the world. This requires us to collect personal information from you. “We”, “us” and “our” refers to the BSB Global Network of companies, including IELTS British council.

BSB is also a joint Data Controller in certain circumstances. Links to the privacy policies of these joint Controllers are found below:

With the other IELTS Owners, for the purposes of delivering the IELTS Test.

The British Council’s is found at: www.britishcouncil.org/privacy-cookies/data-protection

2. In your dealings with us for studying abroad

International Education Information, Advice and Counselling

The services we offer to help you study abroad include counselling, application assistance, visa assistance, English language testing and training, student exhibitions and seminars.

If you register on our websites (www.bsbbd.com) or register to participate in an event we will collect personal information such as your name, email address, contact details, country of residence, nationality, preferred study destination, and when you intend to study.

If you enquire about study opportunities directly with an BSB counsellor, or we assist you with your application to study, we may also request additional information such as education qualifications, employment history, occupation, areas of interest and professional memberships, copies of documents as proof of identity – e.g. copies of passport, proof of citizenship or photographs, marital status and how you will fund your studies. We may also request sensitive information about you such as racial or ethnic origin (from information on your country of origin), and/or your health or medical information (e.g. from a medical examination required for your visa application for an Canada visa).

Collecting your personal information allows us to:

assist you to pursue the opportunity to undertake studies in an education institution outside your home country;

provide you with relevant information on your study options;

present you as a candidate to your preferred institutions across all education sectors, which are seeking to recruit international students who want to study in Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Canada or New Zealand;

assist you to further your career after completing your studies at an overseas education institution;

provide opportunities to participate in projects/programs as consultants;

provide opportunities to provide feedback and testimonials on your experience

inform and provide students, institutions and other clients of developments in the services we provide (including events and opportunities to participate in projects/ programs);

conduct research for statistical, analytical and training purposes;

manage our internal business operations and events; and

respond to your questions.

Student Essentials Services

BSB offers services from third parties to help support you in your studies abroad and we call these Student Essentials. These services include Overseas Student Health Cover (OHSC), accommodation arrangements, a 24/7 emergency helpline, referral to guardianship services, visa application services and career skills training.

If you purchase a Student Essentials service we may collect personal information such as your name, date of birth, and financial information, and sensitive information such as your health or medical information. We may also collect payment information, however BSB does not store information like credit card details.

contact the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) with all relevant information required for visa renewal or parent visa application;

contact our agreement institutions or other organisations on your behalf to facilitate visits, career skills training or internship placements;

arrange or provide other products and services to you.

Retention

BSB vision is to build a global community of connected students from classroom to career. This means we would like to stay in touch for as long as you would like to hear from us, but we will only retain your information as long as is necessary for the purpose it was given to us.

As a guide we will keep your personal information for up to 7 years after commencing your studies or your last activity with us so that we can continue to support you through your journey, unless required to retain it for legal or regulatory purposes

3. In your dealings with us for conferences and events

BSB organises various events and conferences related to international education and sport assessment which may be managed or presented by BSB, whether in our own right, or under contract for another organisation. The information we collect is relevant to your attendance and participation.

4. In your dealings with us for international education market research and insights

International education market research and insights

As part of our commitment to the international education and English language testing sectors, BSB conducts market research to obtain feedback from customers, potential customers and other stakeholders.

The information collected in a research context may be used to improve services, develop new products or services, gauge customer satisfaction, understand decision making behaviours, or to test reaction to products, services or communications.

If you have an existing relationship with BSB we may contact you via email to invite you to participate in our research. If you are not a customer, you may also be invited to participate in research via social media or similar channels.

We collect personal data from research participants to allow us to provide them an incentive or if they are successful in a prize draw (as per prize draw terms & conditions).

Retention

We do not retain personally identifiable information for the purposes of market research. We may retain contact information we collect for prize draws for up to 6 months, as per prize draw terms and conditions, to allow for a re-draw if required.

5. Other dealings with BSB

Other ways you may deal with BSB include:

registering your interest in being engaged as a consultant or employee

registering with a service offered by BSB (e.g. the Graduate Recruitment Service); or

as a representative of an educational institution.

We will provide specific notice at the point your information is collected. Any unsolicited personal information will be securely destroyed.

6. How we collect personal information

We will only collect personal information by lawful and fair means. Personal information may be collected directly from you or your authorised representative, or may be collected from a third party such as a licensee or representative authorised by us to provide services to you. You may supply your personal information to us when communicating with us via social networks and other online channels, e.g. through your Facebook or Twitter identity.

We do not collect personal and sensitive information unless the information is reasonably necessary for our business functions or activities. We will obtain your consent before collecting any sensitive information.

When you deal with us, you will need to identify yourself in order for us to provide our services to you, as such we do not accept the use of pseudonyms.

If you access our websites, we may collect additional personal information about you in the form of your IP address and/or domain name. For more details please see our Website Cookie Policy for further information.

7. The way in which we use and disclose personal information

We will use or disclose your personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected. We will use or disclose your information for another purpose only if you have consented, or if you would reasonably expect us to do so or as required by law.

We may use your personal information for the purposes of our own direct marketing, however we will ensure you have the ability to opt out of future such communications.

Disclosure to others

We may disclose your personal information to overseas recipients such as education institutions located outside your home country, overseas visa agencies, professional bodies and commercial organisations, or regulatory authorities when you have sought our assistance to apply for study at those institutions or where disclosure is required for verification purposes. As such, the location of these overseas recipients would depend on the specific institutions to which you apply or where such verification is required.

Information disclosed by us to overseas recipients for the purposes of providing IELTS testing services to you may be transferred offshore to the other IELTS Owners (British Council). These recipients are United Kingdom based entities, subject to the Data Protection Act (UK). Where we transfer data to offshore recipients, the data is subject to use restrictions and safeguards against unauthorised access.

For events or conferences, we may disclose, with your consent, some of the information that is collected via the online registration form such as your name or your email address to sponsors for marketing purposes.

Some BSB IT systems and data are hosted on servers in countries outside Australia or the UK and we may send your information to one of those servers as part of our business.

This information is stored and accessed only as required to provide our services to you. Where we transfer data to offshore servers, the data is subject to use restrictions and safeguards against unauthorised access.

The information disclosed to overseas recipients consists of any information you have given us to provide the relevant services. By accepting services from us, you consent to us providing your personal information to the relevant overseas recipient as mentioned above. BSB takes appropriate steps to ensure there are adequate safeguards in place for the transfer of your personal information including standard protection clauses in our contracts and an BSB Global Network Data Transfer agreement.

8. The steps we take to protect and keep secure the personal information we hold

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we hold against interference, loss, unauthorised access, use, modification or disclosure, and other misuse.

The steps we take include:

maintenance of computer technology, people and process-based security measures for example firewalls, network security configurations, encryption, use of passwords and other appropriate measures where information is held in electronic form;

restriction of access to data to only those staff that need access to carry out our business activities;

training and ensuring that all our employees are required, as a condition of employment, to treat personal information held by us as confidential.

However, you should be aware that if you submit information to us electronically the internet is not a secure environment. We take reasonable steps to provide a secure channel for receiving information but cannot absolutely protect personal information before it reaches us.

Retention

When the personal information that we collect is no longer required, we will destroy, delete it in a secure manner, or ensure that the information is de-identified in accordance with our information destruction and de-identification policy, unless we are required by law to retain a copy of the personal information or the information is contained in a Commonwealth record.

9. Your rights

You have the right to seek access to any of your personal information held by us unless there is a valid reason under the Privacy Act or Data Protection Act for us to withhold the information.

Valid reasons include:

We have reason to suspect that unlawful activity or misconduct of a serious nature has been engaged in and giving access would be likely to prejudice the taking of appropriate action in relation to the matter; or

Giving access would reveal evaluative information generated within us in connection with a commercially sensitive process.

If your personal details change, or you believe the information we hold about you is incorrect, incomplete or out-of-date, please contact us so that we can correct our records.

Right to erasure

At your request, we will remove all the data we have for you which we are not required legally to retain.

Right to restrict processing

You have the right to restrict processing when you have exercised one of the above rights and it may take some time to process that request. For example: when you contact us to update your details you have the right to request restriction until your details are being updated.

Right to withdraw consent

For the processing activities where we have asked you for consent, you have the right to withdraw this consent at any point by unsubscribing from a message from us, or by contacting privacyofficer@bsbbd.com.

Right to object

You can object to the processing of your personal data.

Right to not be subject to automated decisions and profiling

None of our processing activities are purely automated and no decisions are made without human intervention. There are instances where we process data to analyse or predict behaviour but we will ask you for explicit consent when this processing will involve your personal data.

Right to data portability

If you have provided us with your personal data with consent or under the contact obligations, you have the right to request the data you have provided to us in a machine-readable format should you decide to move to another data controller.

Making a request

Requests for access or correction to your personal information or other privacy rights described above should be addressed to The BSB Privacy Officer by emailing privacyofficer@bsbbd.com. All requests will be responded to in writing within a reasonable period of time. As part of this process we will verify the identity of the individual requesting the information prior to providing access or making any changes. If we cannot fulfil your request, we will respond provide you with an explanation.

10. Making a complaint if you are unhappy about how we have dealt with or are dealing with your personal information

We have procedures in place to deal with your inquiries or complaints.

If you have any questions about our policy or any complaint regarding the treatment of your privacy by us, please contact privacyofficer@bsbbd.com.

If you feel we have intruded on your privacy or misused your data, you are able to complain.

Updates to this Policy

Bsbbd.com regularly revises and updates its privacy policy and publishes changes to the policy at our website. From time to time we may update this privacy policy. We encourage you to take the time to review it any time you provide us with personal information.

We aim for there to be no surprises in our dealings with your personal information. If we make significant changes to the policy and we have your email address, we will send you an email informing you of these changes, how they may impact you, and reminding you of your privacy rights.

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